


Before the storm

by clumsyProphet



Category: Cinderella Phenomenon (Visual Novel)
Genre: Flashback, Gen, One Shot, Spoilers from Delora's background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 00:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13112187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyProphet/pseuds/clumsyProphet
Summary: Delora would often think back about that day, even after years.





	Before the storm

Delora felt immensely tired, that night.

The journey to their hidden house in the woods felt like it was lasting ages, but she couldn't just afford to shut her brain down and let her body carry her to safety: she had to make sure she wasn't being followed. So far she had managed to stay under the radar of the witch hunters, but she wasn't going to risk everything now just because she felt tired.

Finally, the cottage! She looked around, once again making sure she was alone...and then muttered an incantation immediately followed by a faint purple glow and the sound of the door opening. They had keys, of course, but she didn't want to take them with her when she left Loreah alone...if she got caught then the hunters would have no way to access the home that didn't involve some obviously hostile action that would give her daughter ample time to react.

She entered the house with silent footsteps...and immediately noticed the light in their small kitchen. Before she could even start to worry a girl quickly got up from the chair she was sitting in.

"Mom!"

Delora knitted her brows, offering her daughter a reproaching look.

"Loreah! I told you to go to bed at the usual hour! Why are you still awake?"

Loreah didn't even look ashamed after that, instead puffing her cheeks in annoyance.

"I'm not a child anymore, mom! I wanted to know what the Bearer said."

She had to grow up faster than Delora had wanted, true...but she would forever be her little daughter. And besides...

"I would have told you in the morning like I promised."

Loreah immediately blushed before lowered her gaze to the ground.  
  
"Yes, but...I couldn't sleep."

See? Delora was so proud of her because she was such a responsible and sensible young girl...but there were moments when Loreah showed her true age. The witch moved to stand in front of her daughter, before hugging her.

"I will sing you to sleep, like I used to...and then, in the morning, I will tell you what happened. Deal?" she said, her tone soothing.

Loreah just nodded, burying her face in Delora's chest.

* * *

She had gone to bed, but what had happened during their gathering kept her awake despite her best intentions.

Delora had been initially in favour of the creation of the Fairytale Curse: they needed something to defend themselves with, and using the same tales the peasants were using as a pretext to hunt them was the kind of irony she appreciated. But even after more and more people were cursed the Hunts didn't seem to stop...well, they had slowed, true, but only because the few witches remaining were now more careful than ever. So, now she had to ask herself: had the Curse really been a good idea or it had only cemented in the common folk's opinion the idea that witches were evil?

She had been thinking about that for a while, now...and that was why, when Hildyr had proposed to the assembled witches that they needed more drastic measures she had stood up and protested. It was a losing situation: the more they retaliated, the more the peasants would hate them, the more they hated them the more they would try and kill them...many were thinking like her, but she had been the only who had dared to speak her dissent openly.

The Bearer...she wasn't herself anymore, everyone knew that: her connection to the Tenebrarum meant she had felt the death of each witch like her own...and there had been a lot of deaths, during the Witch Hunts. They were scared of what Hildyr was becoming, but she couldn't afford to. She had to keep Loreah safe no matter what and if that meant exposing herself first person against the Bearer's plans then so be it.

And...if she had to be honest, she would have opposed the Bearer even if Loreah hadn't been involved. Hildyr hadn't stated that outright, but Delora suspected she planned to use magic _directly_ against humans...and not in self defence, the only exception the rules of their magic admitted to the 'Thou shall not use your magic to kill' commandment, but to attack first. How could you interpret the 'We need to stop being passive and stop reacting only when the damage has been done' phrase she had used, if not that way?

She just hoped her argument could sway the Bearer: there was no light at the end of the road she was trying to steer them into...and the sooner she could see that, the better.

* * *

 "You were brave, yesterday, to speak up openly like that." the herbalist witch in front of her whispered, after giving her the salve she had asked her to prepare a week before. She...was not sure why she had decided to say that.

"I said what everyone was thinking. I understand her plight, but we can't afford to let grief guide us; we need to keep thinking rationally." she answered back, liking less and less the direction that conversation was taking.

"Don't get me wrong, many of us agree with you...but are you sure it was wise?"

That tone...didn't sound like a threat. More like...a warning.

"What are you implying?"

The herbalist looked around, frantically...but she must have concluded they were safe, since she continued.

"Hildyr is no longer the same, Delora. There are...rumours, that several witches who opposed the creation of the Fairytale Curse disappeared or got caught in the Hunts. And with what she was proposing yesterday...well, it's not like she has much more moral qualms left, hasn't she?"

Delora's throat closed, panic rising in the pit of her stomach...but she forced herself to stay calm. Wasn't this the same as what the peasants had done with witches, assuming that they were all evil because of some circumstancial evidence and rumours? True, her methods were becoming questionable, but Hildyr clearly wanted to protect them more than anything else! She wouldn't...

_But what if she thought that eliminating a few rebel witches could save the rest?_

"She wouldn't. I agree, she's changed...but she must surely know all of us are on the same side, even if I may disagree with her current opinion." she said, trying to quell her internal argument with the force of her logic.

The herbalist looked at her for a few instants, before shaking her head.

"I hope you are right, Delora. But still...please, be careful."

* * *

Once again, the journey home was not a pleasant one, the last words of the erbalist resounding in her head without pause, almost a grim prophecy. _I hope you are right, but be careful..._

She stopped abruptly once she was just a few minutes away from the cottage: there was smoke in the air, she realized with no small amount of horror. Delora started to run, the salve she was carrying shattering on the ground after she had let it fall.

Her heart skipped a beat as she could finally see what remained of her home: a charred husk, the ghosts of the fire that had consumed it still lingering on what had survived of the wooden walls.

" **LOREAH!** "

She started to calling her name desperately, hoping until the last moment that she would respond, that she had survived whatever had hit their home. She circled the smoldering ruins, only to see two figures in the distance near to the well they drew water from. She started to run again...only to stop abruptly once she was nearer.

Leaning against the well was the Bearer, her clothes barely dirtied by a slight hint of soot...and, more importantly, a child was on the ground in front of her, just a few metres away from the well. Delora didn't even spare a second glance to the adult witch, running instead to the child and kneeling to her side.

"Loreah! Loreah...answer me!" she muttered, tears starting to stream from her eyes as she turned her daughter to face her...and finding, with agonizing clarity, that life must have left that little body hours before. Her clothes had burn marks everywhere...but those were nothing compared to the large burn she had in her chest, right above her heart. A burn like...like the one a focused lightning spell would do.

" _ **You!**_ _What did you do?!_ " she screamed, raising her head to glare at the woman in front of her. She hoped until the last moment she had just jumped to conclusions too soon...that Hildyr would answer that she had it wrong, that she had tried to save Loreah but hadn't arrived in time or something like that...

"Isn't that obvious?" she instead answered, her tone absolutely chilling in its indifference.

Delora stopped breathing, her thoughts abruptly shattering after that cruel and blunt admission of guilt. _Loreah was a child. She had done nothing wrong,_ _ **she was just a child how could she do something like that!**_

"Take this as a warning." Hildyr continued, before snapping her fingers.

Delora shouted, a primal sound not unlike the one of a wounded animal, launching an ice missile spell even before she could form the conscious thought...but it was in vain, as the icicle shattered on the dark portal that had just swallowed the Bearer.

 _It didn't matter now! Loreah. Loreah,_ _**Loreah!** _

She found herself hugging the husk that had been her beloved daughter, nothing stopping her agonized wailing. She was so young, she was so innocent...so smart, so kind! Delora would have gladly gave her life to bring her back! Her little girl, her little angel...why her? _WHY HER?_

Nothing and no one bothered to give her an answer. Delora remained alone with her pain, her questions unanswered, her weeping the only sound that animated the following night. The witch would find the force to get up again, eventually: for now, however, her world had been shattered, never to be repaired again.


End file.
